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History of the opera

Birth of the opera

The opera was born in Italy at the 17th century. Among the ancestors of the opera appear the madrigaux Italian, which reflect in music of the situations with dialogs, but without stage business. The Masquerade S, the ballets of court, the intermezzi, as well as other spectacles of court of the Rebirth, utilizing observers, music and dance, are as many precursors. The opera itself emanates from a group of musicians and intellectuals humanistic florentins which had given itself the name of Camerata (Italian “living room” in ). Camerata, also called Camerata fiorentina or Camerata de' Bardi , of the name of its principal patron, had laid down two main aims: to make revive the musical style of the ancient Greek Theater and be opposed to the style contrapuntic of the music of the Rebirth. In particular, they wished that the type-setters simply stick so that the music reflects, and word for word, the significance of the texts. Camerata thought of taking again in that the characteristics of the ancient Greek music. To achieve this goal, one uses the monodie accompanied by the low one continues, the choruses madrigalesques and the old stories and dances instrumental.

The first February 1598, Jacopo Peri written Daphne , that one regards then as the first opera.

The Italian opera

Monteverdi

The first large type-setter of operas was the Italian Claudio Monteverdi. Its operas ( Orfeo , 1607; the Return of Ulysses , 1640; the Crowning of Poppée , 1642) applied the bases of the opera, defined by Camerata.

The opera was spread quickly in all Italy. The principal center of the opera in Italy in the medium and the end of the 17th century was Venice. The principal Roman type-setters were Stefano Landi and Luigi Rossi. The principal Venetian type-setters of this time were Monteverdi, Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) and Antonio Cesti (1623-1669).

In a coterie Florentin at the end of the 16th century, some artists brought together around the patron Giovanni Bardi, in reaction against excesses of the Polyphony of the Rebirth, wanted to return to spectacles Lyrique S, such as they thought to be designed during the Antiquité traditional gréco-Roman, with a music which would make it possible to emphasize the text and not to make it incomprehensible by the complexity of sound architectures of its accompaniment.

If Claudio Monteverdi is not the first Compositeur to translate this program (the first opera, Dafne , being allotted to Jacopo Peri in 1597 in the count Bardi), it is him which carried as of its beginnings the opera in a state of perfection which caused the emulation of the others Musicien S and the favor of the public. The formula was spread quickly in all the peninsula Italy, and one attended the creation of considered local schools, for example with Venice and Naples. To tell the truth, the development of the Bel canto (“beautiful Italian song” in ) with Italian quickly replaced the will of simplification and purification of the song which had governed the creation of the kind.

The 19th Italian century

At the 19th century, the Italian opera continued to leave a choice place to the voice. Gioacchino Rossini composed of the light operas like the Barber of Seville (1816) and Cendrillon (1817), which eclipsed its more dramatic works, like Guillaume Tell (1829). The style of beautiful the canto, characterized by running, expressive and often spectacular airs, also opened out in works of Vincenzo Bellini, of which Norma (1831), Sonnambula (1831) and I puritani (1835), like in the operas of Gaetano Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), or in its comedies the Elixir of love (1832) and Don Pasquale (1843). It is also necessary to speak about Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) which wrote the secret Marriage .

Made green

The French opera

The Italian opera arrives in France in 1645: the cardinal Mazarin had made come from Venice a troop which interpreted the finta pazza at the court of Louis XIV: success is immediate. But it is necessary to await 1671 to see the first really operated “French”: Pomone , of Robert Cambert and Pierre Perrin.

The traditional age

French romanticism

During the 19th century, the romanticism developed in France, Germany and Italy, and gained the opera. Paris was then the cradle of the “grand opera”, combination of spectacle for great purposes, actions, ballets and music. The majority of the operas of this style were written by foreign type-setters installed in France: the Vestal (1807) of Gaspare Spontini and Lodoïska (1791) of Luigi Cherubini, both Italians, like Masaniello , or the Dumb woman of Portici (1828), of Daniel-François-Spirit Auber (1782-1871). This style reached its apogee in works river of the type-setter Giacomo Meyerbeer, like Robert the Devil (1831) and Huguenots (1836). Faust (1859), of Charles Gounod, was one of the French operas most popular of the middle of the 19th century and it is always very present at the poster with the 21e century.

End of the 19th French century

The French type-setter most productive of the last part of the 19th century was Jules Massenet, author in particular of Manon (1884), Werther (1892), Thai (1894). Other works characteristic of the period were Mignon (1866) of Ambroise Thomas, Lakmé (1883) of Léo Delibes, Samson and Dalila (1877) of Camille Saint-Saëns and the Tales of Hoffmann of Jacques Offenbach, Parisian type-setter born in Germany which was essential like the Master of the Op3era Comique French of the 19th century, called Opera-puffs out. At the end of the 19th century, Gustave Charpentier composed Louise (1900), realistic opera of a very different style, putting in scene workmen of Paris. In addition, Claude Debussy renewed the kind of the opera with this original attempt which is Pelléas and Mélisande (1902). In parallel, the greatest success of the opera of all times remains Carmen of Bizet (1875).

The German opera

The German romantic Opera of Ludwig van Beethoven, Carl Maria von Weber, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, is the musical heir to the Singspiel, which quickly becomes obsolete at the 19th century

Haendel

It is in England that the type-setter of German origin Georg Friedrich Haendel was appreciated the most. He wrote forty operas in the Italian style during the Années 1720 - 1730, after which he turned to the Oratorio.

Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote to him also operas, a small score in very if one counts the “theatrical actions” settings in music. Mozart composed his first opera seriated ( serious work in Italian) at the 14 years age, in 1770, for an order Milan ease. It was Mitridate, Re di Ponto ( Mithridate, king of the Bridge ) according to a tragedy of Racine.

In the Years 1780, the emperor of Austria wanted to create a national kind, in which the operas would be obviously sung in German. It is in this context that the Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail was made up ( Removal with the seraglio ). Nevertheless, the emperor did not give following his whim, and the German opera had to await Wagner to be made a name.

Mozart composed towards the end of his life five of his the most played operas. The three first ( the nozze di Figaro , Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni ) are regarded as a trilogy, because them booklet was written by the same author, Lorenzo da Ponte, an adventurer with light manners (he was the friend of Casanova, and at the end of its life, exiled with the the United States, he will make give one of the first operas sung on the American ground, namely Don Giovanni ). Don Giovanni had been created in 1787 with Prague.

In 1791, the year of its death, Mozart composed two operas: the first, the clemenza di Tito ( the Clemence of Titus ) is regarded today as one of the best operas seriated ever written. The second, Die Zauberflöte ( the Magic Flute ) was filmed by Bergman. This last opera owes its booklet with Schikaneder, an organizer of spectacles then heavily involved in debt who saw in the Magic Flute the occasion to remake a financial health. the Magic Flute contains one of the most frightening airs of the opera for the technique and the overshrill ones which it requires, an air interpreted by the Queen of the Night which is entitled DER hölle Rache (an infernal anger).

The 19th German century

The first German grand opera of the 19th century is Fidelio (1805) of Ludwig van Beethoven. Carl Maria von Weber composed the German romantic opera Der Freischütz (1821) and the operas quite as rocambolesques Euryanthe (1823) and Oberon (1826).

The German opera reached one of its tops with Richard Wagner which gave rise to so that it called the “drama in music”, in which the text (of which he was the author), the partition and the setting in scene were inseparable. Its first operas, such as the Ghost ship (1843), Tannhäuser (1845) and Lohengrin (1850), preserved elements of the old style. Its philosopher's stones were Tristan and Isolde (1865), four operas composing the Anneau of Nibelung (1852-1874, include/understand the Gold of the Rhine , the Valkyrie , Siegfried and the Twilight of the gods ), the Masters singers of Nuremberg (1868), where it described the medieval guilds, and Parsifal (1882). Works of Wagner make a great use of the Leitmotiv, musical term identifying a character or an idea returning regularly in all work.

End of the 19th German century

In Germany, the influence of Wagner continued in practically all the operas, until in Hänsel and Gretel of Engelbert Humperdinck (1893), inspired of tales for children. The dominant figure was Richard Strauss, which used an orchestration and vocal techniques similar to those of Wagner in Salome (1905) and pushed them to the extreme in Elektra (1909). the Knight with the pink (1911) became its most popular work. This opera was followed, inter alia, of ARIANE in Naxos (1912), of the Woman without shade (1919) and of Arabella (1933).

The Russian opera

The opera was introduced in Russia into the years 1730 by Italian troops and it formed soon part of the entertainments of the imperial court and the aristocracy. Many foreign type-setters, like Baldassare Galuppi, Giovanni Paisiello, Giuseppe Sarti, and Domenico Cimarosa (as much of others) were invited in Russia and accepted orders of operas, mainly in Italian language. At the same time some national musicians were sent in Europe (thus Maxim Berezovski and Dmitro Bortnianski) to study the composition of operas there. The first made up opera in Russian language was Tsefal I Prokris of the Italian type-setter Francesco Araja (1755). the type-setters Vassili Pachkevitch, Yevstigney Fomine and Alexis Verstovsky contributed to the development of a Russian opera.

At the 19th century

However the true birth certificate of the Russian opera is due to Mikhail Glinka and its two operas, a life for the Tsar (1836) and Rousslan and Ludmilla (1842). Other masterpieces followed: Roussalka and the Guest of stone of Alexandre Dargomyjski; Boris Godounov (1874) and Khovantchina of Modeste Moussorgski; the Prince Igor (created in 1890, after its death) of Alexandre Borodine; the Young lady of snows (Sniegourotchka), Sadko and the Cock of gold (1909) of Nikolaï Rimski-Korsakov; Eugene Onéguine and the Queen of spades of Tchaïkovski.

These works reflected the increasing importance of the Russian Nationalisme, component of a vaster movement Slavophile, in the whole of artistic creation. The work of Pouchkine, regarded as the founder of the Russian literature, provides the intrigue of many these operas, in particular:

Rousslan and Ludmilla , poem epic (1817-1820)
Eugene Onéguine , novel in worms (1823-1831)
Boris Godounov , historical tragedy (1825)
the stone Guest (1830), on the topic of Dom Juan
the miserly Knight (1836)
Roussalka (1832)
the Queen of spades , news (1833)
the gold Cock , tale (1834)

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At the 20th century

The traditions of the Russian opera were taken again by many type-setters, among whom Serge Rachmaninov which composed the miserly Knight and Francesca da Rimini , Igor Stravinski with the Nightingale , Mavra , Œdipus Rex , and The Rake' S Progress , Serge Prokofiev with the player , the Love of the three oranges , the Angel of fire , engagement with the convent and Guerre and peace ; in still Dmitri Chostakovitch with the Nose and Lady Macbeth de Mtsensk , Edison Denisov with the scum of the days , and Alfred Schnittke with Life With Idiotic year and Historia von D. Johann Fausten .

Principality of Liege

The opera was one of the first literary works in Wallon, which contributed to confer a sizeable statute on this language. The four operas of, of Cartier, Fabry and Vivario, known under the name of “theater inhabitant of Li2ege”, were created in 1756, and were played regularly under the Ancien Mode in front of the grips invited in Principauté of Liege.

They were republished by François Bailleux in 1854 and contributed to the birth of the Société of Walloon language and literature in 1856.

The modern opera

Since always, the opera is a vocal art and prima donna, the pivot of a successful production. However, at the 20th century, the accent was also placed on the production as a whole, the Leader, the Director and the Décor ator playing of the roles as important as those of the singers.

Several operas were written specifically for the diffusion, like Amahl of Gian Carlo Menotti and Owen Wingrave of Benjamin Britten (1971), composed both for the Télévision. The tographic version Cinéma of the Magic Flute of Mozart by Ingmar Bergman (1974) reached a large audience, as well as the Don Giovanni of Joseph Losey in 1979.

In the last quarter of the 20th century, the opera, in spite of its artistic and technological efforts, is confronted with a financial crisis. In the majority of the countries, the companies are largely subsidized by the State; with the the United States, the principal patrons are the private foundations, the business enterprises and of generous givers. Nevertheless, of new operas are unceasingly built, in France, the Opéra Bastille with Paris (1989) or the Opéra of Lyon, answering a preoccupation with an acoustic perfection as much as to a given politico-cultural strategy.

The improvement of the techniques of recording, on the one hand, allowing a good listening of works residence, the cost of the great productions, on the other hand, requiring a certain damping of the design, indeed contributed to the media diffusion of the opera (traditional, gets along) at the 20th century near the cultivated elites and to make of him the kind more snuffed intellectual middle-class.

As of the Years 1990, several houses of opera undertook a policy of popularization, aiming a young public primarily, by decreasing in a significant way the price of the places. With the Theater of the Currency of Brussels, for example, the formulas of subscription for less than 28 years start with 30 euros (90 euros with the national Opéra of Paris). In addition, the teaching service undertakes a work of information and sensitizing bound for the schools, aiming at fidéliser the public of tomorrow. This type of strategy spreads more and more, gradually leaving the opera the élitiste framework in which it had been locked up since the end of the 19th century.

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